The 2024 Urban Planning Grand Prize is awarded to architect-urban planner Claire Schorter

Created in 1989, the Grand Prix de l'urbanisme distinguishes each year a personality recognized by an international jury. It promotes the action of professionals who contribute to advancing the discipline and improving the living environment of the inhabitants of all territories.

This year, the jury nominated Claire Schorter for her ambition to green the city's factories. Reconciling city and agriculture, uses and plots, its achievements demonstrate that it is possible to propose projects that are more sober, more resilient in the face of climate change, but also more pleasant to live in.

The jury wanted to salute its work, its thinking and its commitment which puts residents at the heart of the project as well as urban projects which reincorporate the general interest within the territories. It thus opens up effective avenues of action, approaches to anticipation and appropriation, which could usefully shed light on planning practices in the future.

Claire Schorter

Claire Schorter is an architect-urban planner and founder of the LAQ agency. His agency is involved in numerous major metropolitan projects including that of the Ile de Nantes and that of the Saint Sauveur station in Lille. It calls for the hybridization of urban forms and programs to produce a more diverse urban fabric.

Trained in architecture, town planning and ecology by passionate teachers and pioneers of the link between city and environment, she pays particular attention to living things, which she deploys and reinforces in complex urban fabrics.

Its numerous projects demonstrate by example the operational feasibility of the projects and its approach. In Lille, on the Saint-Sauveur railway wasteland, Claire Schorter is mobilizing citizens to bring about a new centrality by relying on transitional uses but also on the biodiversity which has taken over the site. In Rungis, she is rethinking the urban edge and the city-nature interface of a market garden plain in the form of an agro-district, thus preserving soil fertility and offering new uses to residents. On the Island of Nantes, she continues to reflect on the layout, the plot, the quality of housing, and on the way in which we can reconcile density, human scale, natural spaces, and quality of use. In other contexts, it highlights the possibility of finding activities in town centers and rethinking city entrances, rehabilitating existing buildings by avoiding demolition, preserving agricultural spaces, reinvesting large complexes.

The Jury for the 2024 Urban Planning Grand Prix

The President

Philippe MAZENC, general director of planning, housing and nature (DGALN) *

The members

The elected

Florian BERCAULT, mayor of Laval and President of Laval Agglomération

The Ministry of Culture and Communication

Hélène FERNANDEZ, deputy director in charge of architecture, representing the general director of heritage and architecture (DGPA) *

International personalities

Robert PYKA, Polish sociologist, professor at the University of Silesia in Katowice

Professionals

Emmanuelle COSSE, president of the Social Union for Housing (USH)

Catherine SABBAH, general delegate of the Institute of Advanced Studies for Action in Housing (IDEHAL)

Sarah BELLIER, general director of the EPA Nice EcoVallée

Jérôme GOZE, general director of the FAB - Fabrique de Bordeaux Métropole

Hélène PESKINE, permanent secretary of the Urban Planning Construction Architecture – (PUCA)

Simon TEYSSOU, grand prize for urban planning (GPU) 2023 *

Henri BAVA, TER agency, GPU 2018

Sophie RICARD, member of Notre Atelier Commun, list of young urban planners (PJU) 2020

Philippe ESTEBE, Acadie cooperative

The qualified personalities

Emeline CAZI, journalist at Le Monde

Nathalie MOUTARDE, journalist at Le Moniteur

Aldo BEARZATTO, co-founder of the Close-Up festival and host-producer of the show La Fabrique Urbaine

With the presence of Ariella MASBOUNGI, special advisor, Grand Prix de l'Urbanisme 2016 as well as the sustainable development sub-directorate of the housing, urban planning and landscapes department (MTECT) and the members of the technical commission.

Note: * the star indicates the members of right